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Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 2,641 Likes: 3
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Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 2,641 Likes: 3 |
What STEM Students Need to Know By Eric Freeman and David Gelernter Wall Street Journal Dec. 18, 2017 ...
Students should reach college prepared to take serious science and engineering courses, yet many don’t. Our math teaching is half a century out of date, and without math there is no STEM. Computer science builds on electronics and “discrete mathematics,” as opposed to the classical type leading to calculus.
Discrete mathematics deals with such problems as: “In how many ways can you arrange five different things?”; “How many different routes go from A to B on this map?”; and “What’s the probability that a typical New Yorker will fall down a manhole before he is hit by a crazed cab-driver?”
Students need classical math more than ever. But discrete math is fundamental to computing and ubiquitous in the real world. Students should begin studying it as soon as they have finished arithmetic in the fourth or fifth grade.
The clumsily named field of “computer science” actually deals with software, not computers. To understand software, you need a basic understanding of computers; for that you need some basic electronics education.
There are many ways to build a von Neumann machine—the world’s standard digital computer since World War II. You could use gear-trains, complex molecules or gigantic Tinker Toys. But electronic circuits have been the best way to do it since the early 1950s.
Digital circuits are built mainly using transistors. Computing students must learn about transistors and semiconductors. And they must learn the basic engineering and physics underlying all electronics. No student should leave high school without understanding voltage, current and resistance.
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Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 312
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Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 312 |
I honestly don't see how it helps for a software person to understand the science that governs how hardware operates. They need to know how they are expected to interface with the hardware, and what its capabilities are. I say this as someone who codes, and took a Digital Very Large Scale Integration class, and all the prerequisites for it.
Last edited by DAD22; 12/19/17 12:18 PM.
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Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 1,453
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Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 1,453 |
I think that learning about Ohm's Law, logic gates etc was interesting at High School but fundementally Logic and Problem Solving skills which are basically innate have been what has kept food on my table for the past 30+ years in software engineering.
Knowledge of combinatorics and complexity are important without a shred of doubt and while intuitive they do provide useful insights that make the difference between a program/system which eventually produces the right outputs and a great system. This will be increasingly important given the absurdly large data sets available these days.
But, while professional pundits can bleat all they want but the sad truth is that the folks who don't get 'classical maths' are in all likelihood going to not get Discrete maths either. Sure Maths education in the US is sub par but without tracking by ability adding fuel to the confusion fire like this will not fix anything. Reminds me of how many ways DD had to show how to do long multiplication/division in the futility of its naive earnestness.
Last edited by madeinuk; 12/20/17 04:07 AM.
Become what you are
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Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 2,856
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Joined: Oct 2011
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My education included calculating Ohm's Law values, drawing out transistor circuits and logic gates, etc... basically, all the stuff the article says no STEM student should leave high school without. And as a systems engineer (which is closer to the hardware than a software engineer), I can authoritatively tell you that the knowledge has zero applicability.
The only benefit was that the discussion on logic gates and truth tables is directly applicable to conditional processing in a program flow. I can also certify that the same knowledge could have been conveyed without ever discussing the digital circuitry.
Last edited by Dude; 12/20/17 06:31 PM.
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